Stick Models

The Stress analysis world was changing, we had a program called IMP which allowed computer models of mechanisms, including beams, hinges and springs but it was unknown to the customers, in addition, internal loads were developed by hand crafted computer programs, prone to errors from bad logic and bad programming.

APPH invested a small fortune in computer hardware and software called Patran-G version 1.6 and it took quite some time to have the system up and running. Patran was the preprocessor to create and prepare input files for the Atkins analysis package, ASAS. A system to represent physical structures with computer elements.

It was mainly due to the shortage of people and the many projects that APPH were working on, that the responsibilities for training and working on this stuff fell on one persons shoulders. I therefore became the APPH poster boy for FEA, Finite Element Analysis, a position that overall, worked well for me.

That's me, on the right, in an airtight, warm room in which I would undertake complex technical work while struggling to stay awake. The image on the screen is the bottom end of the EH101 piston, another APPH project.

It was this training and skillset that resulted in a chain of events that would affect the rest of my life.